The Co-operative Loan Fund worked with other specialist lenders to help the employees of a leading manufacturer of playground equipment to buy the business.

Sutcliffe Play, based in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, is well known for its design-led, child-centered, innovative outdoor play equipment. It supplies local authorities and other customers all over the UK and has distributors in various European countries and Japan.

Sutcliffe Play employs 90 people. It was set up as a family firm in 1947, but for many years the chairman and majority shareholder Robin Sutcliffe has been wanting to transfer ownership to the workforce.

“Employee ownership has been a dream for almost 50 years,” said Robin Sutcliffe. “From the day I joined the family business my ultimate aim was to one day hand the reigns of our business to its employees.

In my experience, employees get as much satisfaction out of their jobs through meaningful involvement in a company as they do from financial gain. Employee ownership motivates and provides a level of commitment that is unusual in privately owned companies.”

Co-operative and Community Finance, which manages the Co-operative Loan Fund, worked with Baxi Partnership to co-finance this employee buyout.

Ian Taylor of Co-operative and Community Finance visited Sutcliffe Play and assessed the proposal for the employee buyout in detail.

“I was impressed with everything I saw,” he said. “Sutcliffe Play is a very professional and well managed business and I think it’s going to get even better when it’s employee-owned. It’s my experience that manufacturing businesses in particular benefit from the greater trust and transparency that employee-ownership and co-operative management bring.”

The transfer of ownership was completed on 8 April 2010 after complex legal and financial arrangements. The majority of shares are now held by an employee benefit trust on behalf of all the employees. In addition, most of the employees have personally invested in shares.

The board now includes an employee representative as well as the former directors. There is also a new employee ownership council comprising six elected workers (three shop floor and three office staff) and one representative from the board. The council meets regularly with the board.

West Highlands Free Press has become theUK’s only employee-owned newspaper, after a loan was approved from the Co-operative Loan Fund and ICO Fund PLC to support an employee buyout. With the help of Co-operative and Community Finance and the Baxi Partnership, West Highlands Free Press is now owned by ten of its employees who will ensure the paper continues to remain independent and rooted in the community.

The paper was founded by five friends in 1972 as a left-wing weekly newspaper, but with the principal objective of providing its immediate circulation area with the service that a local paper is expected to provide. It carries the masthead An Tir, an Canan, ‘sna Daoine – ‘The Land, the Language and the People’ and this is something that the five original shareholders wanted to abide by when putting the paper up for sale.

Rather than selling the business on the open market, which founder Brian Wilson explains was “never an option”; they approached the employees of West Highland Free Press to see whether they would be interested in buying the company’s shares.

Ten employees now own and run the business, and the creation of an employee benefits trust will ensure that the paper continues to run at the heart of the community.

Brian Wilson, the paper’s founding editor and still an active contributor to the paper, said: “This was the right thing to do and the right time to do it. We wanted the paper to remain independent while offering a great opportunity to the employees who have served it loyally.

Paul Wood, Director of the paper said: “The successful move to employee ownership marks a significant achievement for the staff of the Free Press and an apt reward for the hard work, skill and loyalty they have shown the company.”

Ian Taylor of Co-operative and Community Finance said:

“West Highlands Free Press is a fine example to show how employee buyouts can increase the motivation and job satisfaction of staff. For this company, employee-ownership was the only business model which would enable the paper to continue running at the centre of its community and ensure all members of staff job security.”

Staff at the Free Press are excited about the buyout as editor Ian McCormack explains: “We will work to ensure that the main aim of the company remains the publication of a top-class newspaper with first-rate staff writers, photographer, production and advertising and admin people as well as some of the best columnists inScotland.”

In addition to the weekly newspaper, West Highland Free Press also produces an annual publication known as ‘The Visitor’ which provides information about places to see and things to do in theWest Highlands.

For further information about WestHighlandFree Press visit: www.whfp.co.uk